


The Portrait

by SarcasmLand



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Can you even believe it?, Character Death, Harry's not the main character!, In memory, Luna is awesome, Peace, Sacrifice, Silence, Snape shouldn't have died but he did so there, anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 09:22:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14541630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarcasmLand/pseuds/SarcasmLand
Summary: Everyone knows that Harry Potter made sure the Portrait of Severus Snape was hung in its rightful place at Hogwarts. But Harry had just defeated Voldemort and was enjoying a well-earned sandwich in his dormitory (courtesy of Kreacher) and masses of victory-happy magical beings are hard to control.So here are the real facts: Harry Potter was only the inspiration to the one who saved the Portrait. It wasn't Harry Potter who saved the Portrait. It was Ron Weasley, who, in the silence that had settled over Hogwarts, was a hero. He carried the hundreds out of their memories.And he did a better job than Harry ever would have.Up to you if this is canon compliant or not.





	1. Breaking The Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Snape always blamed himself for Lily. He was more than a little annoyed at himself for speaking like he did to her son's green eyes. He probably blamed himself for his own death. Honestly.
> 
> I wrote this mostly because Snape is awesome and he needed a little boost of confidence after... Everything.

_What was it like to not be grieving? To have the time for petty insults that could sting your flesh and bone once, but never now, and never again?_  Ron sees the crowd of loud and gleeful students as they run up the rubble that once led to the Headmaster’s office, and somehow, he knows what they came for. He tries to run after them, tries to call out, but the words are lost in the cries of victory, and his hopes break like his leg — he has to stop them, has to, for Harry, for Hermione, for Lupin and Tonks and Colin and Cedric and Sirius and _Fred_ , and the wave of grief hits him again, and he is drowning in an ocean of memories…

*     *     * 

_Her voice wasn’t as annoying as it sometimes was, not today. “You’re saying it wrong.” Ron doesn’t care if he’s messed up every human’s tongue. She’s smart enough to save millions of lives, and Harry is that brave. Ron wants to help. But until then – “It’s Wing-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa, make the “gar” nice and long.’” Her words echo in his ears as if he is in some great cavern, but he is only in a crater, a hole filled with rubble and death and memories…_

*     *     *

_Harry collapsed into their arms and he tells them, tells them everything he had seen in the waters of the Pensieve, he forces it out through a tight hole in his heart, and that’s what they’re all doing now, scared to speak through the silence, and things will be just as bad as before until someone shouts. Harry is shaking, and Hermione too, and Ron, and even Neville and Luna, who wouldn’t let their grief-stricken heroes walk without a guard. And as one, they think through the pain of the aching in their heads what the man must have gone through, what he never once showed in the years that he terrified them. And when Luna speaks the words, they know they are true, and as one grieving voice, they whisper through the silence, “He had no peace — and yet he made it for us, with everything in him.” but it is still a whisper, and so the silence continues._

*     *     *

Ron is crumpled in the ruined corridor that may never be fixed and the crowd is running out of the office, and they are carrying between them a dark wooden frame which Ron has never seen before but knows all too well, and they are hating it. He hears their insults and feels their punches and pokes and prods and taunts as if he is the man sitting in the frame, the man who is wearing the same dark black cloak and the same unchangeable expression - but now it is changed. The painted eyes of Severus Snape are closed, though the man still can feel the heat of the pyre through their lids and layers of paint. Ron sees the pyre, and he knows which bodies have already been burned there, and he knows the sight of a snakelike tyrant’s face going up in flames, and he knows who the man in the painting is, and those two will not be burned together. But Severus Snape, sitting in his portrait, has his eyes closed tight, and he refuses to see the pyre, nor the body being carried towards it from the other direction, which could be his own. Even when he is close enough to sense the remains of the flesh that taught the painting of Severus Snape who he was, he does not move, and the careful observer might even say he resigns himself to this fate. But Ron is not a careful observer, and he sees grief behind the rigid posture of the painting, and there is regret, and there is hatred, but it is self-hatred, and as the riot throws the portrait over and over, higher in the air, closer to the pyre every time, Ron sees that Severus Snape believes he deserves to be burned. Twice.

_And though every inch of him screams from the fear and the pain and the breaking and grief, Ron Weasley grips his battered wand and straggles to his feet._

He is in this ocean of memories, and though he is drowning in the craters of fear and caverns of silence, he holds on to those voices in his head, the one that wasn’t annoying, that started his life once, in some distant past, and the five friends that will live on, together, as one, in his brain with their words about peace. And with their combined forces, and the last bit of hope that is not yet as broken as his leg, he points his wand at the dark picture frame and shouts.

_"Wingardium Leviosa!"_

And the silence is broken.

The crowd is no longer a riot, but a mob, a mob that pretended to be drunk on their victory to forget about their loss, but now they remember it and the fact that it cannot be forgotten, and they cry. And their crying joins that of the families in the Great Hall that are not the same families as they once were, and soon, Hogwarts is hiccuping in a rare kind of peace, huddled around the corpse and the memory of the man who made it.


	2. Epilogue - 1 year later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's the really cool part. I'm not going to spoil anything, but we're dealing with some pretty * _ancient_ * magic, if you know what I mean...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one Epilogue this time!

This was the seventeenth procession Harry James Potter had walked in since the Battle of Hogwarts. It was the first one that he wasn’t in the front of.

The parade was led by the portrait of Severus Snape (Order of Merlin, Second Class), now known by all wizardkind as the Ironic Peacemaker. The painting was carried by Ron Weasley, who had saved it, and Luna Lovegood, who had honored it. Behind them was Harry, who had tried to do both as Snape lay dying, and told the wizarding world whom they had to thank. Behind him walked Headmistress McGonagall, in between the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and his Assistant Minister, the just-inaugurated Hermione Granger. She had done the research on the necessary formalities of this ceremony, with all those who had attended it before now dead, or else - in the case of the portraits - forbidden to speak of it until the day of.

As they entered the office, the portraits on the wall woke from their “slumber” immediately. Astonishingly, they all rose in unison, ignoring, for the most part, the height limits of their frames. Hermione regarded them anxiously. “Are you all ready?”

Phineas Nigellus Black’s sneer could almost be called a smile, he was so excited. “Ready as we’ll ever be, child. We won’t need help. Just say the words and the magic of the founders will speak.” Hermione swallowed, then nodded confidently. It helped. She stepped away to allow Ron and Luna to step forwards. They placed the portrait on the neatly cluttered desk and propped it up. McGonagall stood behind them and placed her wand tip on the top of the ebony frame.

“Here is the portrait of Severus Snape,” she said. And then, the words they had carefully planned; “He was a feared man and a fugitive, but driven by love, and though he never had peace within him, he strove to give it to the rest of the world.”

The wand emitted four puffs of smoke as she spoke; on the words _feared_ , _driven_ , _love_ , and _strove_. The strands of smoke twisted together and tied themselves up, each vying to come out on top. And as they did so, they took on the four house colors – but each strand did not have its own. The tangle of Severus Snape’s personality was _striped_ with yellow, red, blue, and, most prominently, green. And out of it spoke four voices.

“He was the Headmaster of Hogwarts during dark times,” said an old man, somewhat reluctantly, and Harry felt like it was winter in the Great Hall with the fires roaring.

“He was one of the greatest potioneers of his time” said a woman, and her voice reminded Hermione of the long hours she’d spent in the library, lost between pages.

“Through the many trials of his life, he never lost sight of what mattered to him.” Here were the moments that Luna had felt at home among those who respected her right to believe what she did, in the ancient and disembodied voice of a kindly old lady.

“And for that,” said a dark and decisive tone, “he has earned the respect and honor that will be given to him.” The words sounded a bit like an order, but Severus could feel power radiating not just off of them, but into everyone else. For the first time, in life or death, Severus Snape felt worthy of good.

Salazar Slytherin’s voice continued. “He has earned his peace.” The portraits moved across the wall of their own accord, opening up the space right behind the desk. The smoke-voices carried Snape to the wall, and the painting glowed brilliantly for a millisecond, momentarily blinding the living in the room, and sealing Severus Snape into the place where he could finally belong. The four strands of smoke separated again, and went one to each corner of the frame before disappearing into thin air. But in the silence of silences that followed, one could almost hear the Four Founder’s departing words.

_“Salazar, we talked about this. Just because he’s with you doesn’t mean you get to be so dramatic!”_

_“I believe, Godric, that my enthusiasm was quite appropriate for the situation. —“_

_"Oh, both of you, stop! It’s done and over, and I’ve made cakes. Do come over.”_

_“I can’t. Did I tell you of the book I started…”_

And then they faded back into memory.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it.


End file.
